Capping off the E3 conferences for the week, Nintendo's E3 Direct aired earlier this evening and, although there wasn't a lot of brand new games announced within it, it's hard to say it didn't deliver the goods when it comes to what's arguably Nintendo's biggest release this year: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
It's called Ultimate, of course, because it really is the Ultimate version of all Smash games so far. Featuring all 65 characters that have appeared in the entire Smash series as well as a handful of new characters, including Splatoon's Inkling, Daisy (as an 'Echo' character of Peach) and Metroid's Ridley. There are new Pokeball Pokemon, Assist Trophies, items and stages - but it also seems like the game might be as thorough in including all the previous ones as well.
The E3 Direct was otherwise light on new games. Fortnite was finally confirmed for release on the Switch, and indeed is available on the eShop right now. A new Fire Emblem game, subtitled 'Three Houses' will be released next year, and features some new gameplay never seen before in the series and Super Mario Party - a new twist on the Mario Party series, which is out this October.
In Pokemon news, the Pokeball Plus available for Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee has been confirmed to come preloaded with Mew. If you're looking to buy the accessory to play the new games with, a bundle for $99 USD will also be available with each game bundled with the device.
A playthrough of the games on Treehouse Live also confirmed a few gameplay details of the games. Your rival in the game will be a brand new character and as well as new characters and areas being included in the game that weren't there in the original Pokemon Yellow, there will be some changes to existing characters. Suspiciously, the demo specifically avoided challenging Brock, the Pewter City Gym Leader, possibly indicating that his team might not necessarily be the same.
In addition to physically throwing a Pokeball to catch Pokemon, the berry mechanic from Go has also been included. Tossing a berry at a Pokemon will make it easier to catch, and catching Pokemon has a chance to provide you with more berries as well.
Meanwhile, you can choose to trade in Pokemon you've collected to Professor Oak, similar to the same mechanic in Go. Instead of getting candy named after the Pokemon itself, however, the candies will boost the Pokemon's various stats by one level, similar to the wing items available in the main games.
We also saw confirmation that the Pokemon we saw the trainers riding in the trailer were the players' own Pokemon that they chose as their 'buddy' Pokemon, rather than Alolan style ride Pokemon. That would seem to indicate that Pokemon like Lapras will be required in your team to traverse water routes as well.
You can watch the entire Direct below if you missed it:
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